Rice Sets Table for Peace Talks, Bringing Baggage in the form of US Agenda

The article at left, appearing in the Friday, January 19, 2007 edition of USA Today speaks of efforts of US and other international officials to mediate peace between Israelis and Palestinians. US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, who just recently visited Britain and the Middle East, plans to return to the region next month to begin peace talks with both Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Fatah Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.
It has been commented that both of these leaders are much weaker than their predecessors (Ariel Sharon of Israel and Yasser Arafat of the Palestinian Authority), which could create difficulties in peace talks, but, however, there is a much greater general willingness among Israelis to cede land to form a Palestinian nation. Olmert is under heavy criticism for his handling of this summer's conflict with Lebanese Hezbollah guerrillas, and with the recent resignation of Israel's Military Commander, Olmert has only a 14% approval rating from his citizens, not to mention the shadow being cast over him by the investigation into his possible foul play in the sale of Israel's Bank Leumi and other actions taken by Olmert during his term as Israel's finance minister. At the same time, Abbas faces pressures from his people, who have shown greater support for the Palestinian Hamaas Party, deemed a terrorist organization by the US, Israel and the European Union, which clashes with Abbas' Fatah party agenda.
In the past, peace talks between Israelis and Palestinians have gone off with varied degrees of success, but it seems as though difficulties at this time may arise from a separation of interests between the people of these countries and their governments, as well as a lack of support for government leaders on both sides.
A main goal of Rice's trip to the Middle East was to bolster Arab support of the US position in Iraq, which, according to the USA Today article, she was able to do with only a few lingering doubts. A main concern of both Sunni and Shiite Arab leaders was the threat of a crackdown on Shiite militias throughout the Arab world and the treatment of Sunnis and Shiites living together under sectarian governments. This concern arises, from a good degree, out of a comment made by Rice last week to the Senate Foreign Relations committee saying that Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was on "borrowed time", a comment al-Maliki fears will "boost the morale of terrorist efforts." Rice, in a weak response to the biasing statement, blamed it on the translation and tried to rephrase her slip up and cover herself saying that she meant to express the sentiment that "both sides want the same thing."
Looking ahead to these future talks, it is somewhat troubling to think that the main US goal in Israeli-Palestinian peace talks is to gain support for the US efforts in Iraq. Regardless of any personal position on the situation in Iraq, I feel that the Iraq conflict and Israeli-Palestinian peace talks should be treated as two entirely separate entities, both of which require careful and attentive handling, but which should not be inter-related for the benefit of the United States. With the bloody and brutal history of Israeli-Palestinian relations, and the current circumstances casting shadow over the upcoming peace talks, it is unwise of Rice to come to the table with a US agenda, when she should be sitting down to focus solely on the precarious relationship between these two warring countries.